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Hun Sen
Hun Sen (Khmer: ហ៊ុន សែន; born 5 August 1952) is a Cambodian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Cambodia since 1985. He is currently the world's longest-serving prime minister, the longest-serving head of government of Cambodia, and one of the longest-serving leaders in the world. He is also the president of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and a member of the National Assembly for Kandal. From 1979 to 1986 and again from 1987 to 1990, he served as Cambodia's foreign minister. Biography Hun Sen was born in Kampong Cham as Hun Buny, the third of six children in a decent family. His father, Hun Neang, was a resident monk in a local Wat in Kampong Cham province before defrocking himself to join the French resistance and marry Hun Sen's mother, Dee Yon, in the 1940s. Hun Nal left his family at the age of 13 to attend a monastic school in Phnom Penh. When Lon Nol removed Sihanouk from power in 1970, he gave up his education to join the Khmer Rouge. Two years later, Hun Nal changed his name to Hun Sen. Hun Sen came to power with the Khmer Rouge and served as a Battalion Commander in the Eastern Region of Democratic Kampuchea (the state name during the Khmer Rouge government). In 1977, during internal purges of the Khmer Rouge regime, Hun Sen and his battalion cadres fled to Vietnam. As Vietnam prepared to invade Cambodia, Hun Sen became one of the leaders of the Vietnamese-sponsored rebel army and government. Following the defeat of the Khmer Rouge regime, Hun Sen was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Vietnamese-installed People's Republic of Kampuchea/State of Cambodia (PRK/SOC) in 1979. Hun Sen rose to the premiership in January 1985 when the one-party National Assembly appointed him to succeed Chan Sy, who had died in office in December 1984. He held the position until the 1993 UN-sponsored elections, which resulted in a hung parliament. After contentious negotiations with the FUNCINPEC, Hun Sen was accepted as Second Prime Minister, serving alongside Norodom Ranariddh until a 1997 coup toppled the latter. Ung Huot was then selected to succeed Ranariddh. In the 1998 election, he led the CPP to victory but had to form a coalition government with FUNCINPEC. Hun Sen has since led the CPP to consecutive victories and is currently serving in his fifth prime ministerial term. In June 2015, following the death of Chea Sim, Hun Sen was elected president of the CPP. In 2018, he was elected to a sixth term in a largely unopposed poll, with the CPP winning every seat in the National Assembly. Hun Sen was 32 years old when he became prime minister, making him at that time the world's youngest head of government. He has been described as a "wily operator who destroys his political opponents" by The Sydney Morning Herald and as a dictator who has assumed authoritarian power in Cambodia using violence, intimidation and corruption to maintain his power base. Under his government, thousands of opposition activists, politicians, environmentalists and human rights workers have been murdered, where a majority of the cases were never investigated due to the political ties with the incumbent administration.Hun Sen has accumulated highly centralized power within Cambodia, including a personal guard said to have capabilities rivalling those of the country's regular army, making coup attempts virtually impossible. Some political opponents of Hun Sen have in the past tried to accuse him of being a Vietnamese puppet. This is due to his position in the government created by Vietnam while Cambodia was under Vietnamese military occupation and the fact that he was a prominent figure in the People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea (now known as the Cambodian People's Party), which governed Cambodia as a one-party state under Vietnamese military occupation from 1979 until elections in 1993. Hun Sen and his supporters reject such charges, saying that he only represented the Cambodian people. Hun Sen's government has been responsible for leasing 45% of the total landmass in Cambodia—primarily to foreign investors—in the years 2007-08, threatening more than 150,000 Cambodians with eviction. Parts of the concessions are protected wildlife areas or national parks, and the land sales have been perceived by observers as government corruption. Already thousands of citizens have fallen victims of forced evictions. Hun Sen was implicated in corruption related to Cambodia's oil wealth and mineral resources in the Global Witness 2009 report on Cambodia. He and his close associates were accused of carrying out secret negotiations with interested private parties, taking money from those who would be granted rights to exploit the country's resources in return. The credibility of this accusation has been challenged by government officials and especially Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has placed bans on public gatherings, driven opposition supporters from the site of former protest meetings 'Freedom Park', and deployed riot police to beat protesters and detain union leaders. 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